Military model makers are celebrating unprecedented increases in sales thanks to the massive success of DMM’s Kantai Collection franchise, with fans obediently buying up even the very un-moe warships the KanMusu are themselves modeled on.

Such is the knock-on effect of Kantai Collection’s popularity that Akihabara based model shops have seen sales surge ten-fold since the game’s release.

Some lines of models (likely those involving certain destroyers) have seen overall sales increase five-fold as well – admittedly from an extremely low base of perhaps 500 models for a popular light cruiser like Tenryu – and makers complain ecstatically that “production cannot keep up and some models are constantly out of stock.”

Unsurprisingly, it is the top makers of model battleships who are seeing most of the action – Tamiya, Aoshima Bunka Kyozai and Hasegawa – with the traditional market of military model otaku in their fifties suddenly giving way to KanKore fans in their twenties and thirties.

Hasegawa has already jumped on board with KanKore collaboration editions of some of its “Water Line” series, boasting special packaging and decals, happily mentioning that “the producer of KanKore was already a Water Line series fans so the collaboration went very smoothly.”

Similar tie-ups between Girls und Panzer and tank model makers have also been going on for some time, and there is hope that an influx of enthusiastic battleship moe fans will boost the model industry’s customer base – should the boom prove anything more than a fleeting one.

Why all this battleship / moe-girl action? It's all about WWII. Or more accurately, about pretending Japanese aggression before and during the war didn't happen.

They don't want to admit that they did all those horrible things, and they also want to wipe out the fact that they lost big time. It's not doing them any good, because all their neighbors haven't forgotten and they're still very angry.

All the recent stuff about China, Korea, and the Philippines claiming those tiny islands controlled by the Japanese is not just about resources, it's about getting back at Japan because of what the Imperial Empire did.

Imagine that there was a cartoon in the US about the cute little atomic bombs, Fat Man and Little Boy, and the fun they had with the B-29s Enola Gay and Bock's Car (the planes that dropped the bombs). You would be able to hear the howls from Tokyo to Washington without a telephon. The Japanese would be up in front of the UN screaming about their poor innocent war dead and demanding additional reparations.

So how does it look to the Koreans, who want some recognition of the "comfort women"? The survivors are all almost gone from old age, and the Japanese are ignoring the whole issue.

A Japanese container ship was just seized in China over a civil suit copncerning property that was taken by the Japanese when they occupied China in the 1930's. It's all a very sore topic and is not going away any time soon.

I know that no one who visits this site cares a rat's ass about this and it will be taken down quickly. Even so, for the few people who end up reading this, I hope you realize that cute girls are not going to change the attitude of people who suffered terribly at the hands of the Japanese during WWII.

Korea & most especially, China whines about anything that could be correlated to imperialism in Japan *whilst* China acting like a big ASSHOLES in the sea slamming their boats on other ships beacuse they think the whole world belongs to them..

Japanese turned their bad war memories into some kind of sadomasochistic pun, see all those gigantic blows in majority of their animation, they are all created because atomic strike became a part of their popculture, like shirts with Che Guevara in other countries.

I'll bet the people who traditionally put these models together really hate Kancolle, similar to the way people who traditionally watch anime hate shows like Shingeki no Kyoujin for bringing all the normal-fags into their house.

not that i know of
but you still have to built this kit, and i believe its not a complete snap fit (no glue required)

things like this can also promote HOBBY magazine, since newbies buy magazine to learn how to finish their model, learn new things, and promote even more kantai collection

as for people who traditionally do these? if you are an model ship otaku, you will be indifferent about kantai collection or you hate it,
but as a modeller, its all about precision & what the factory offer, as long the kit is good, precise & accurate to real thing, and durable, any thing is ok

its like girl und panzer again, some may whatever about it, some may HATE it, although AOSHIMA is not the best manufacter, for anything really, they are pretty bad
but yea, model kit, if you see things you want, or you like it, buy it regardless of it promotion box art

best model manufacturer is still tamiya, BANDAI & kotobukiya

tamiya for adult & replika of real life things

bandai for kids to young adult easy to build & very durable

kotobukiya for niche market, somewhat not beginner friendly & not as durable as bandai

but I used to own the almost complete IJN fleet from the waterline series

in the past almost nobody gives a fuk to the IJN light cruisers in the waterline series, cos they are fugly and weak, so I guess from the maker's perspective the boosted sales of those light cruiser models is like lol n wtf